A frightening virus has changed life as we know it. People have become allergic to each other and one touch can be enough to kill.
Angela lives a quiet life, isolated from her husband and their two teenage children. While they still share an apartment, each lives sealed up in their own room, with no physical contact allowed. The only way they can interact is via the internet and mobile phones.
But Angela is lucky, she is part of the local neighbourhood watch, which means every so often she gets to don a protective suit and a camera and go outside to see what’s happening. But something happens on one of these outings that will alter her family’s lives completely: she encounters a man surviving without protective clothing. And he doesn’t appear sick at all.
As Angela becomes obsessed with finding out who he is, her life begins to unravel.
I sped through this dystopian tale in pretty much one sitting. It’s beautifully written and well-paced, alternating between two timelines as we also see what life was like for Angela and her family when the virus struck.
This is a book about our worst impulses and what would happen if we left alone to indulge them. Each member of Angela’s family displays selfish and obsessive behaviour; none of them are particularly nice people. Angela’s marriage is teetering on the edge; she often refuses her husband Colin’s pleas for attention, dismissing his attitude to his work and his parenting skills. But even before the virus, there were hints that the relationship wasn’t doing well. Being trapped in isolation, on opposite sides of a bedroom wall, has allowed the couple to indulge their own desires and ignore the other person’s.
The children have also been impacted by the forced isolation. Daughter Amber is troubled and her longing to be outside living her life is reflected through the way she spends hours at a time on her treadmill, the sound a constant reminder to Angela of the distance between them. But son Charlie has responded most dramatically to the situation, becoming a chillingly unpleasant character. In the flashback scenes, there are hints given to his character development and you have to wonder whether he would still have grown darker even without the quarantine.
Skin beautifully captures the way the world around us might crumble. Dogs are abandoned and become feral, streets are overgrown and shops looted. Angela reflects often on the things that have been lost, realising how pointless her previous dedication to work has become.
With people unable to interact in person, the internet provides a lifeline. In many dystopian worlds, it dies out altogether, but here it thrives. Colin’s company has been able to seize the opportunity to develop virtual reality technology to allow people an escape. It means people have become increasingly desensitised and keen to seek out this alternative fantasy world.
A beautifully written dystopia that explores the impact technology can have on us, and how we all need human contact to thrive.
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N.B. I received a complimentary copy of Skin in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.